The Works of Mr. William Shakespear. Volume the First. Containing The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors, Much Ado about Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost [Shakespeare]

The first volume of the first edition of Shakespeare’s works to appear after the four Folio Editions of the seventeenth century and the very first illustrated edition (lacking 5 of 9 original plates) which has been described by a recent scholar as an 'inaugurating moment'. The publisher Jacob Tonson and the book’s editor Nicholas Rowe achieve their preeminence among Shakespeare printers and editors through a series of innovations: here we learn for the first time where scenes from the dramas actually take place - Lear's Heath is named, for example. The text gives characters the names we know them by, such as Puck, and divides acts and scenes, as well a using modern punctuation and making hundreds of emendations to the text.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Lacking original boards. Remnants of spine panel reveal gatherings beneath top and tail. Text block edges soiled. General title page nicked and scuffed along fore edge with slight loss to top right corner. Preliminaries age spotted. Text clean and unmarked although corners bumped and age toned. Lightly spotted to gutters in part. Collates [xii], xl, pp 1-462. 4. Lacking pp. 463, 464 and 5 of the original engravings. Remaining engravings in good condition include those placed before each of the plays: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors (clean tear parallel to spine to top half), Much Ado About Nothing and Loves Labour Lost.